Poll: What is the biggest maintenance challenge to having thousands of aircraft parked temporarily?

U.S. domestic flights dropped from about 27,000 on Jan. 23 to less than 17,000 on March 23, according the flight trackers at RadarBox. That 37% reduction is not as drastic as the cuts in some parts of the world, but sharp enough to ground a lot of aircraft. And many of those aircraft are headed for the warm, dry desert.

Mark Bleth, air center manager and deputy director of Roswell Air Center, says he is in conversations with both airlines and the MROs that represent airlines about his aircraft parking services. “We anticipate filling to capacity of 800 in the next 90 days,” Bleth says. That count would be about 11% of the U.S. commercial fleet.

Read the full article - Roswell Expects To Store 800 Aircraft In 90 Days.

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For the last few weeks, Aviaprime has been in a damage-control mode. The primary requirement is to establish and maintain the supply chain, so checks started before the crisis can be finished. “It’s especially important, given the fact that we do a lot of end-of-lease and redelivery checks, so airlines are eager to wrap them up and finish the deals,” he says.

Second, the company says airlines need support to park aircraft. “Seeing the photos all over the world of aircraft stored on runways and taxiways, we cringe a bit. The costs of the workers being transported to perform short- and long-term storage maintenance are very big.” 

Read the full article - Polish MRO Does Damage Control, Finishes Checks, Offers Parking Space.

To hear this topic discussed further by a panel of experts, listen to the first MRO webinar - MRO And COVID-19: Dealing With Parked Or Idle Aircraft And Engines.

To share your views on other areas of the aftermarket, take a look at the previous weekly MRO polls here.